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featured artists
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
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biography
(b. Mexico City, 1902; d. Mexico City, 2002).
Alvarez Bravo is one of the most important living Mexican photographers. Over his prolific career he became known not only for his photographs, but also for his immense contributions to the international awareness of Mexican photography. Bravo was born in Mexico City in 1902 into a family of artists. Both his father and grandfather explored painting and photography. Before devoting his life to the arts, Bravo studied accounting and even worked in the Mexican Treasury Department. In 1915 he enrolled in the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, where he studied art and music. While a student he got a job working for the Power and Transportation Department where he began to develop an interest in photography. In 1923 he met the German photographer Hugo Brehme, an important early influence, which led to the purchase of his first camera, a Century Master 25. Bravo became part of an influential circle of artists including the muralist Pablo O'Higgins, photographer Tina Modotti, painter and muralist Diego Rivera, and painter Francis Toor. These relationships introduced Bravo to radical artistic thought and political involvement that would shape his entire career. By 1929 he was working with Rivera, photographing the work of muralists for the exhibition Mexican Folkways. Bravo was given his first solo exhibition in Mexico City in 1932 at the Galeria Posada. In 1934 Bravo met the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson and the two artists exhibited their work together at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City the following year. In 1938 Bravo met the French Surrealist Andre Breton, which led to Bravo's inclusion in the Surrealist exhibitions in Mexico City and in Paris. In 1943 Bravo began working as a cinematographer for the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Produccion Cinematografica de Mexico (Mexican Worker's Union of Cinematographic Production). As a cinematographer he worked with famous directors Sergie Eisenstien, Luis Buñuel, and John Ford. In 1934 he made one film of his own, Tehuantepec. In 1949 he became involved with the publication of Mexican art and co-founded the journal El Fondo Editorial de la Plastica Mexicana. Bravo was appointed a member of the Academy of Arts in Mexico in 1980. That same year he also became involved with the Museum of Mexican Photography, which he helped to organize and direct beginning in 1986. Bravo has been widely exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions in the United States, Mexico, Paris, and London. Please click here to read the LA Times memoir
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